And you thought Michael Vick organizing pit bull fights was bad? Check out the situation in this writer’s former stomping grounds of New Mexico and the brutal entertainment animals provide some folks out there.

Specifically, we’re talking about “cockfighting,” a diversion in which specially-bred roosters are fitted with blades on their legs and placed in a pit. The “game” ends when one of the birds is killed or essentially mortally wounded.

As of June 15 – with or without the support of New Mexico politico, former Clinton Administration crony and current US presidential candidate Bill Richardson (more on him later) – activities related to cockfighting were banned in the state.

Naturally, a lawsuit resulted. Specifically, that’ll be the New Mexico Gamefowl Breeders Association et al v. Gov. Bill Richardson, Attorney General Gary King and state Police Chief Faron Segotta.

Said New Mexico Gamefowl Breeders Association president Ronald Barron in a well-publicized comment, “There’s a lot of people upset. It’s affecting their businesses, their livelihood.”

In an interesting tactic, the NMGBA’s 19-page lawsuit seeks to attack the law based on terms set in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, a document signed in 1848 to end the Mexican-American War which made New Mexico a US territory. 

Having read the document, this writer isn’t exactly sure which article of the treaty has been violated, though one wonders how certain New Mexicans would feel about certain other passages, such as that in Article XI which mentions certain policies regarding the “savage tribes” occupying “American land.”

This would seem to be fodder for New Mexico’s well-vocal liberals as well, particularly in light of the fact that the NMGBA is quite fond of playing the race card in defending its leisure activity. The group’s mission statement declares that the “members of the NMGBA are dedicated to protecting your cultural rights…”

Of course, the organization also declares that “Cockfighters, by nature, have a ‘live and let live’ mentality.” (Which apparently does not extend to non-human forms of life.)

Indeed, the response of the NMGBA to the ban declared that “racism is [the] root of [the] cockfighting issue,” in complaining that the state legislature did a terrible thing to the “honest, hardworking, taxpaying cockfighters and their families in
New Mexico.”

Unfortunately for them, the lawsuit seems to have few grounds in reality. Back in 2003, certain cockfighting interests attempted to argue a case with the 1848 document, only to have attorney general King opine to a state lawmaker that cockfighters’ rights are not protected by the treaty.

Then there’s would-be prez Richardson. Richardson, a Democrat, has served as New Mexico senator, ambassador in Bill Clinton’s administration, Department of Energy head, and as state governor. Unbelievably, back in the 2000 state election, Richardson actually promised that, if elected governor, he would sign no bill outlawing cockfighting in the state of New Mexico, citing – you guessed it – cultural concerns.

Naturally, many NMGBA members went to work campaigning and contributing for just about the only dude which a shot at the big chair who would publicly take such a stand. How betrayed they must have felt when Gov. Richardson signed the bill in 2006! How betrayed Richardson’s non-New Mexican animal-loving supporters in his presidential bid might feel if they knew this!

And how little this guy actually deserves to be America’s cock of the walk!